Dealing with Plot Block

Writer's block can be caused by any number of things, but one of the more common is plot block. You're busy writing away, following the story wherever it leads you, then suddenly you realise you've written yourself into a corner. You're not sure how to get from one scene to the next or which order to write your chapters in. So you make a coffee, log into social media and that's the end of writing for a few weeks.

It happens to me from time to time, but I've developed a simple technique to help overcome it.

What you'll need:

• Blank piece of paper (don't be afraid of it!)
• Pen, pencil or crayon

Forget which order things go in for the moment, just think about your story as a whole. When you think about your story, I bet there are some highlights that leap out at you? Certain scenes you can clearly envision or conversations you can hear? Crucial moments that anchor your plot arc? Like when you remember a film you've watched, there are always certain moments that stand out more vividly than others. Points at which the story changes direction.

Start writing these scenes down - just brief one-liners:

• Oliver turns Beth into a frog
• Carla takes Beth home to dissect for a science experiment, not knowing it's her best friend
• Huge argument between Beth and Oliver
• Carla finds the spell to turn Beth back into a human
• Beth's mum crying because her daughter is missing

Just pop it all down there in boxes.

Better yet, write each scene on a post-it note so that you can move them around the paper.

Once you've got the main plot points of your story down, start to rearrange them into a logical order. Or number them 1, 2, 3, etc.

For instance, Oliver is likely to turn Beth into a frog as a result of their blazing argument. Beth's mum is likely to be crying whilst her daughter is missing, not once she's been turned back into a human. So the above scenes make more sense as:

1. Huge argument between Beth and Oliver
2. Oliver turns Beth into a frog
3. Carla takes Beth home to dissect for a science experiment, not knowing it's her best friend
4. Beth's mum crying because her daughter is missing
5. Carla finds the spell to turn Beth back into a human

If there are any stand alone scenes or anything a little bit random, you can then work out where along that logic line you could slot them in for best effect.

The above is a simplified example. It often takes a while to envision which scenes to include, and which order they logically fit in. But once you've got your scenes in a chronological order, you know what to write next and where the story is going. 

I'm not one of these people who plans everything out in detail before I start writing. I like to allow my stories a fair degree of autonomy, but sometimes I do get stuck. I'll stop to do this three or four times whilst writing a novel. The moment I can see a path through the woods, I'm off again.